Back to office led to decline in women in senior mgmt roles: Grant Thornton

Mumbai, With a larger number of entities preferring to shift their work back to offices, there has been a decline in women workforce in senior management roles in companies, a report said on Thursday. This is the third consecutive year that the share of women in the senior management roles 'considered essential for promoting diversity at workplaces' continued to decline, the report by consultancy firm Grant Thornton Bharat said.

The onset of the pandemic around four years ago triggered a move to working from home, which offered a lot of flexibility for all the workers. However, with things getting back to normal, there has been a shift to working from offices and many companies are also ending the hybrid work models which they had adopted as the pandemic waned.

The report, which comes ahead of the International Women's Day on March 8, is based on the inputs from about 300 women in senior management roles from as many companies.

The consultancy firm said 34 per cent of women in Indian mid-market businesses currently hold senior management positions, which is modestly down from 36 per cent in 2023 and 38 per cent in 2022.

It, however, stressed that the current percentage is much higher when compared to the 12 per cent figure in 2004 and 14 per cent a decade ago in 2014.

Businesses offering a hybrid model have decreased to 56.5 per cent in 2024 from 62.3 per cent last year, while those asking employees to return to the office have increased to 34.7 per cent in 2024 from 27.4 per cent in 2023.

It said staff working out of their homes has also significantly dipped to 1.8 per cent in 2024 from 5.3 per cent in 2023.

The consultancy firm's chief business officer Satya Jha said the need of the hour is to allow employees to work flexibly.

"Measuring the number of women who have moved into senior management positions is very important to understand whether, internally, women are being championed to progress and move up the ladder," Pallavi Bakhru, a partner at the consultancy firm, said.